An Early Ottoman Interpretation of the Alexander Romance: Ahmedî’s İskendernâme

This article examines Ahmedî’s early fifteenth-century İskendernâme, the most influential Ottoman reworking of the Alexander Romance. After tracing the multilingual transmission of Pseudo-Callisthenes through Byzantine, Islamic, and Iranian routes, it analyzes Ahmedî’s innovations, drawing chiefly on Ferdowsî and Nizâmî. The poem systematizes ideal kingship through advisory epistles attributed to Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Socrates, and recasts Indo-Iranian political theory (justice, liberality, consultation) into an Ottoman adab idiom. It also reshapes the Alexander–Gülşah episode as a mystical interlude, builds an encyclopedic cosmos spanning cosmology, astronomy/astrology, psychology, and medicine, and organizes wonder narratives (ajâib wa gharâib) thematically. The work’s epistemology pivots between Aristotle’s worldly knowledge and Khidr’s inspired lore and culminates in the Tevârîh-i Mülûk-i Âl-i Osmân section, which fuses epic, mirror-for-princes literature, encyclopedia, and dynastic historiography. Seasonal descriptions track Alexander’s life, reinforcing cyclical time.